


like foals, unsteady on their feet

by smithens



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Childhood Memories, Developing Relationship, During Canon, Falling In Love, Flirting, Getting to Know Each Other, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Missing Scene, Parked Car Conversations, Romance, The Time-Honored Gay Tradition Of Unpacking All Of Your Emotional Baggage on the First Date, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-27
Updated: 2020-01-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 15:55:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22399693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Two blokes, having a chat, not trying to fit in for once.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Comments: 47
Kudos: 170





	like foals, unsteady on their feet

**Author's Note:**

  * For [morecircumspect](https://archiveofourown.org/users/morecircumspect/gifts).



> title taken out of context from [south london forever by florence + the machine](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lua-N4OrPKA)
> 
>  **content notes:** this fic has smoking, swearing, flippant references to sexual behaviour of potentially dubious consent, homophobia, & 1920s gay subculture vocabulary

With shaking hands he pressed the starter and cranked the gearshift; the rumble of the engine calmed him. It was familiar and comforting, a reminder that here he was doing something he'd done a hundred times before, something he'd practised, a task with steps one, two and three. Like starching a collar, or tacking the heel of a shoe.

 _You know what you're doing,_ he told himself. _You know what you're doing._

In fact he hadn't the faintest fucking idea what he was doing, but he knew how to drive and he knew the streets of York and if he didn't get the both of them out of this particular one soon he'd go mad, so that's what he was going to do.

He began to drive.

"Are you ready to go back to Downton just yet?" 

His voice was steady and smooth, nothing in it to bely that he felt like he was flying and falling at once. He'd had years of practise at this, too. Sounding like he took it all in stride.

He looked over at Barrow, who slowly shook his head. He was still wide eyed and white in the face.

"Yeah," Richard said. He took a deep breath and willed his heart to stop pounding. "Yeah, nor am I."

Silence.

That was to be expected, he supposed, after all that the man had just been through. Perhaps he had been too forward… who was he kidding, of course he'd been too forward. Barrow had had a hell of a night of it and his side of the story involved another man; he didn't need one more vying for him. Too forward, and not only that, what if he thought it was a proposition? An _I'll stay quiet if you'll…?_ They hadn't known one another for long enough that Barrow could be certain his advances stemmed from roots of affection. He hoped he'd think well of him enough he mightn't assume the worse, but hope couldn't be relied upon, not always.

It was a comfort; it kept him going in the dark times. But it was guessing and believing, was all it was. Like religion.

Richard kept his eyes on the road. 

What was he going to do? He'd get them out of the centre, that needed to happen for certain, and then… he'd park, and they'd talk.

They needed to talk. 

He needed to talk to him.

Beside him, Barrow audibly swallowed, and then he spoke for the first time since they'd been in the street. "Mr Ellis, I…"

_Keep your eyes on the road._

"I…"

_This is not going to be a confession of undying love._

"You can call me Richard," he murmured.

"Can I?"

He sounded hysterical. He had good reason to, of course.

"Yeah. I want you to." 

"Richard," Barrow said, and then again, more quietly, and after that a third time, as though he were exploring how the sounds felt leaving his mouth. _Say it again,_ he wanted to tell him, _keep saying it._ It was different than how he'd imagined he might and all the sweeter for it, another pleasant surprise from a man who seemed to be full of them, Jesus, what was he thinking, need he remind himself that Barrow was with another man not an hour ago? Someone he'd gone for instead of him, getting up to who knows what, someone he'd doubtless be worried sick over, someone Richard had been resenting until he saw the police roll up to the warehouse and barge in whistles blowing —

No matter what trick he'd just pulled in the street back there, no matter how much he flirted from here on out, he was the second choice.

As if he could blame him for it. He'd lost track of time — something neither of them had in spades. And he'd been cautious since walking through the front doors of Downton Abbey, kept his hair up. How the hell could he have known what it was he wanted, given the lengths he'd gone to keep it hidden?

"Richard," Barrow said finally, and he had to flex his hands on the steering wheel and breathe out slow to quell what he felt coming over him. He was smiling; he didn't know if he'd stopped since seeing the man's lips part and eyes widen, shocked and relieved. It was entirely at odds with what he was feeling, however, the sense that he was swimming upstream, soaring at one moment and struggling against the current at the next. "I - I don't know that I can thank you enough, for…"

"No one's going to look out for us but ourselves, Mr Barrow," Richard told him. He wanted desperately to learn his Christian name, but it would be too much to ask for it — he'd wait for it to be given. Barrow had waited for him, after all. "'s our duty to do so when we can."

"You could've… what if they'd suspected you, of…?"

"They can't arrest a man for his sympathy."

"Yeah, but…"

"Most I'd've been subject to's embarrassment," Richard said, as firmly as he could muster. It probably wasn't true, but then, he hadn't been thinking of himself in there.

"You can't believe that," Barrow said, incredulous. 

Yeah, come to that he didn't.

They stopped at an intersection — there were but few other cars out, time of night being what it was, but there remained straggling pedestrians in the town centre. Might've been wiser to go around, but he wanted to be out of the city proper sooner rather than later, and this was the way to go about it.

He managed to get a glance at Barrow in before they were moving again.

He was more himself in his fervor, fixing him with a look that said at equal turns _you're daft_ and _you're joking._ "They're bloody coppers, what's going to stop them from making something up and tossing you in with the rest of us? And humiliation's not exactly fun, is it, and it's not the worst thing, but you clearly – well, if you're telling me to be circumspect surely you know that someone could've – could've followed you out – "

"Don't work yourself into a spin, Mr Barrow."

Driving wasn't soothing him the way he'd hoped it would; this wasn't helping.

"But you could've been _hurt,_ " he said, soft, now. "Over me, I – " And then he laughed, a throaty sound. Hysterical had been a good word. "I'm not bloody worth it."

"Don't say that," Richard said immediately. Instinctively. 

"It's true, though."

"I don't agree."

"You can't mean that," Barrow said, exactly as he'd said the similar thing a moment ago, disbelieving. "You just met me. You don't know."

"I know that you're worth more than prison and public ridicule, Mr Barrow."

"But how?"

He levelled him with the most serious look he could manage in the circumstances, doing his best not to frighten the poor man further, and said, "you're a person."

And then he took his eyes back to the road. They could park, but where? At this point he was driving for the sake of it, but they'd time yet while they had to be back at Downton — plenty of time, he knew these dinners like the back of his hand, could say what was happening per the face of a clock and generally be right on the money. He'd drive in circles for the next hour if it meant Barrow's nerves would settle.

"But – "

"Maybe if you'd done something wrong I'd feel differently about what you did or didn't deserve," Richard said, and that was true, of course, but he had rather a high threshold for _wrong._ Nothing Barrow could have gotten up to qualified, unless he'd sorely misjudged his character. He didn't know exactly what he _had_ gotten up to, beyond what the officer had said… and in that there was ample room for interpretation.

"You don't think I did, then. Do something wrong."

Richard sighed. He'd seen hints of this in him already, but he hadn't much hoped to see more than that… yet here it was, staring him in the face, the fact that Barrow could be just as diffident as any other man. Or perhaps he simply wasn't so self-assured in this as he was in the rest of it.

That was hardly uncommon.

"If you can truly believe that I would, then I've done myself a disservice."

"I," started Barrow, and then he stopped. A quick glance told Richard he was bouncing his leg, restless; it took all the possession he had not to reach over and set his hand upon his knee. "I, er… yeah." He sighed and brought one hand up to his face, near to his eyes. "Yeah, you're – I don't know, I think they got to me. I let them get to me."

Doubtless that had been their intention.

"I can't blame you for it," Richard said, and it wasn't enough to express the thoughts he had in his head, but Barrow, agitated, didn't give him the time to continue.

"Haven't ever heard people talk like… not since I was… well," he said, fumbling, an almost reedy note in his voice. "I, er, learned some new words today."

And heard old ones in new combinations, Richard reckoned. He wondered just how bad it was.

Awful, probably. He'd only heard the cacophony himself.

"Didn't feel especially proud of my actions," Barrow said quietly. "Hearing them."

"Yeah," Richard said, just to affirm that he was listening. He knew what it was like, of course, but to say so seemed like it might be crass. Putting himself first. He hadn't gotten into any trouble for a long time.

"But it's not anything to be proud of, is it, how I ended up there."

"Mr Barrow – "

"Thomas."

"Thomas," Richard repeated. "That's – ?"

"My name."

And it was a lovely one, so far as he was concerned.

He said it again. "Thomas." 

"Yeah."

"Can I call you by it?"

"Why else would I have told you?"

Right. What a foolish question.

"Yeah."

"I mean, not while we're working," he said, _Thomas_ said, and then before Richard had time to think about the implications of that he added, "but I misstepped at the least, did I not?"

Richard paused. He had to think about it, in fact. He couldn't deny his jealousy, nor his affront, but it all paled in comparison to the terror he'd felt watching two dozen or so men shepherded out of the building.

Shepherded — hardly. If the Collies were rabid, perhaps, and the lambs were for slaughter.

"You may have," he said finally. "But that's not the same as doing wrong."

"May as well be."

"We draw the line in different places, I think, you and I."

"You can draw the line wherever you like, Mr Ellis. Richard. Doesn't change the fact that I went off with a strange man from a pub, now, does it – "

"Who among us hasn't?" 

Thomas made a sound rather like he was choking. It seemed inappropriate to smile; Richard did anyway. Just a small one; he couldn't help himself. Thomas had a way of cutting through his curtains, letting the sunshine in.

"So," Thomas said after a moment. He coughed. "You really are…"

And hadn't he thought he'd made that perfectly clear.

"No, Mr Barrow," he said, "I touched your mouth back there owing to our shared inclination toward domestic service."

A pause.

He worried for a moment that he'd been too sarcastic for the circumstances — he'd been keeping his poker face remarkably well, even if it came and went. Keeping it, that was a habit of his, one he'd never been able to shake. It was all he had to fall back on. 

Sometimes he fell back on it as a man fell onto his own sword.

Finally: "Thomas."

"I touched your mouth owing to our shared inclination toward domestic service, _Thomas._ "

This pause was shorter.

"Well," Thomas replied, looking down at his lap and smiling, bashful in a way Richard hadn't yet seen. The look of it gave him butterflies. "That's one I haven't heard before, _an inclination toward domestic service;_ is that what they're saying in London, these days?"

The laugh came forth from him with no warning; before he knew it Thomas was laughing, too, but it didn't last long before they'd faltered. Richard adjusted his grip on the steering wheel, trying to gather his bearings. He had the sense that if he had them in body he'd have them in mind, even if that never turned out to be the case. He heard Thomas sigh, looked over to see he was already looking at him, and —

They were laughing again, out of breath, unabashed and without suppression. On and on like they were children. Richard had to force himself to keep his eyes forward — and what a struggle that was, when Thomas was there beside him grinning ear to ear, the stress of the night set aside if but only for a moment.

Like they were children…

Naturally, he didn't know to just where he was driving until they were there.

"Where are we?" Thomas asked, and his voice still had the evidence of his laughter, airy, untroubled. Like earlier in the day, when they'd left the post office in Downton knowing they'd gotten away with something and happy to have taken someone down a notch.

"Nowhere all too special." To anyone else, at least.

"Well, I wouldn't've found it by myself."

"Came here as a child, more often than not," Richard said. "The old school's just up the road that way. House is a bit further along in the other direction."

The house where he'd spent most of his evening.

He ought to have known this was where he'd bring them. As a boy he had taken to the place like he had full charge of it; as he'd grown it'd become where he went whenever he needed somewhere safe — it wasn't safe, of course, not truly, there wasn't anywhere in all of England that was, but it was the closest thing to it. And he'd never felt _unsafe,_ there. That was something magical. Nowhere else in the city was so untarnished.

He turned off the car. 

Thomas seemed to be making a survey of the area, and Richard found himself frightened that it'd be found lacking, as though that were what this was about. He'd not brought him out here for the view, though it wasn't a bad one, per se. They were overlooking the railroad tracks, could see the summer night horizon, but that wasn't their purpose.

He didn't know what their purpose was. He only knew that he wanted to sit beside Thomas Barrow and keep on making up for four days' worth of lost time.

"Did you?" Thomas asked finally.

"Yeah," Richard said.

"Sounds special to me."

"Maybe. It hasn't changed all that much, not like the rest of this place." He realised he was picking at a loose thread at the hem of his waistcoat — he'd have to fix that, later — and started picking at his thumb, instead. Not that that was better, he'd get told off for it if he went too far and it showed, but he couldn't stop himself from doing _something_.

Should he say it, was the question. Would Thomas take kindly to his bringing it up.

Thomas said nothing; wordlessly, Richard reached over to vent the windows before fumbling at his chest pocket for his cigarettes. He handed one over and hoped that his intention in doing so was clear: _I'd like to be here for a while yet._

It was accepted. Before he took out his lighter as well he rolled down the window, and he heard Thomas doing the same at his other side — and then he looked over and found him already smoking.

Likewise, Richard accepted the offer of a light, leaning forward.

They didn't take their eyes off each other.

"It's got to be nice, that," said Thomas, after he'd taken several drags, smoke curling from his mouth as he spoke. He was better at it than Richard himself was, he noted. "Having somewhere to come back to that's how you left it."

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, it is nice."

— and God, had he needed something to take the edge off. This was doing it for him.

"I grew up in a village," Thomas went on, bitterly. "But it's not – it's been swallowed by Manchester. Nothing's the same as it was when I were a boy."

Most of York was like that, too.

Just not here. 

"For the best, really, I bloody hated that place, haven't been back since the war, but…"

"It wasn't all bad?"

"There were places I wouldn't mind remembering."

Richard nodded, even though Thomas wasn't looking. He had his hand out the window and was staring out into the distance, pensive. 

That was the word.

So he hadn't made a mistake, bringing him here.

"Just a few. But they're all gone. Or different."

"That doesn't mean you can't remember them anyway," Richard said, and he brought his cigarette back up to his lips and resisted the urge to lean back and close his eyes.

"Easy to forget, though, after a while. And I…" He laughed. It wasn't like before; it was bitter. "I've only ever lived two places in my life, really, home and here. Downton, I mean."

"Yeah."

"And – it's _Downton,_ I wish I had more than bloody Downton, I can't… I don't know if anything good's happened there that didn't get ruined eventually. Everyone else, they've had their – their romances, there've been three weddings since I started and there's another bound to happen soon, and the Bateses have got a son and Daisy, she went and, and did over her bloody childhood, got an education, same with Andy, and Baxter's turned her life back around and I think she's happier than she's ever been, and there were people working there before who their good thing was leaving, only being at Downton was what got them the better jobs to leave for, and when I left it was to something worse and even though I'm back now it's not – it's been better, but that's only a year and a half or so and everyone else has got more, there are little things, like…" 

He was speaking so quickly that Richard didn't have the time to think, but he was listening, hanging on every word.

Thomas took a breath, shaky, before continuing: "back when I first started we'd dance in the servants' hall when we could get away with it, play parlour games, that sort of thing, make use of free time when we had it. And there were – Lord Grantham does a cricket match every year, and I've always been the best one of the house team, and there's a fair that comes round every year that we all go to, used to do the London season every year – I mean, guess that's not exactly novel for you – "

"I grew up here," Richard offered. "I can assure you I see the appeal."

Downton was small, and if he were to be frank, boring into the bargain. That was why he'd been so surprised to learn that the Abbey wasn't an old squire's sleepy rural estate, and not only that the most remarkable country house he'd ever had the burden of working in.

It wasn't a burden at all.

And it had Thomas in it.

At the comment the man laughed, shook his head; this time he breathed in through the cigarette and more calmly than before at that. "Yeah, well, I've done four for debs and a couple for sitting Parliament, and most everyone still around's done at least one of either, but all of those things — anyone else downstairs, they'd bring all those things up as happy memories, but for me it's – well, it can't be like that, can it. All I remember about those things is how different it was for me than the rest of them. How different _I_ was. Whether it was to do with work or not. It didn't matter if I was the only one who was getting the job done right, and mind you I was most of the time, and it didn't matter if I was the best at something, because I had to – I mean, I did everything. Never sat anything out, and I – I didn't do it because I liked it, or because it was fun, I did it because if I didn't…" 

"They'd know why."

"Yeah, and it was – they already knew why, they all know, at Downton, most of them have since I started, and so I had to… prove that I could, y'know. Be a man. To myself as much as the rest of them, if I'm perfectly honest, I – "

He stopped short and looked back at him.

"I don't know why I'm telling you all this," he said slowly.

"I asked."

Thomas raised his eyebrows. "No, you didn't."

Hadn't he? He thought he had.

"I like to hear it."

"Yeah, because you haven't dealt with enough of my personal problems for the night," Thomas said, blithe as though he weren't bothered about it, which struck Richard as unlikely. So he had his fronts all the same.

Richard… was fiddling with a button again. Both hands busy.

At least that was easier to fix than a red and swollen finger. He gave up trying to stop the fidgeting and hoped that at some point his nerves would settle, ideally well before he finished smoking this one. When he knew the score they would; he felt sure of that.

The problem was _if,_ not _when._

"I want to get to know you, Thomas," he said. "Without the rest of your household listening in."

Over the course of his brief and busy stay at Downton they'd spoken at every meal and every time they were in the same room, small talk. None of it was about anything that mattered in quite the way this did, and he'd been keeping him at arm's length where he could — he'd done his best to convey his interest all the same, but there were lines he couldn't cross, chances he couldn't bring himself to take. Just the day before they'd been sitting in the sewing room mindlessly chatting while the rest of the household wrought chaos upon itself, door wide open, and time and time again Thomas had said something that made him think, _say you're glad you're not to marry,_ or, _tell him where you used to go for walks on your half-days,_ or, _quote bloody Carpenter for God's sake..._

It hadn't occurred to him until later that Thomas had no business being in the sewing room and actually _sewing,_ given he was not only a butler but an off-duty one at that, and that everything he'd said that had made Richard think he ought to be dropping hairpins was probably him dropping some of his own.

He was a fool.

But he could leave all that in the past. They were talking now.

Truly talking.

"Why?" Thomas asked, but it wasn't as self-deprecating as it might have been. It was closer to hopeful than that.

"Why," Richard repeated.

"Why do you want to get to know me?"

"I have my reasons," he said blithely.

Without saying anything, Thomas tilted his head at him and raised his eyebrows.

And the urge overtook him. Richard found himself staring at the roof of the car. It was a trick that worked to make him seem absentminded or far away, made it easy to ward off unwanted questions and advances. He'd spent the last eight weeks of his life deploying it on ladies' and housemaids, women who weren't keen nor clever enough to know how to get around it. The sort who couldn't have possibly caught his eye even if he could have been interested.

Thomas was not a housemaid.

Thomas was keen and clever.

"You're a curious person, Thomas," he said, when the silence had grown to be unbearable. "I'd like to know what makes you tick."

Someday he'd learn to say all that he was feeling, but apparently the day was yet to come. He'd said curious; he'd meant… other things.

"Oh, so it's purely a mechanical interest?" Thomas asked, dryly amused, catching him out just as he had at the resolution of their first conversation — _is he often ill?_

The moment he knew beyond a shadow of a doubt he'd begun to fall for him.

"No," Richard answered, just as he had the first day. He looked back down and over at Thomas to find him smirking.

"Go on, then."

Was he flirting, or…?

"I find you charming," he said casually.

"That's not one I hear often," Thomas returned, a quirk in his lips. "If ever."

Richard raised his eyebrows. "Should be."

"Well," said Thomas, gaze shifting. The confidence was gone. "I, er…"

It was Richard's turn to give a questioning glance.

He almost regretted it.

"You're not the first tonight to say it," Thomas muttered. 

…of course he wouldn't have been. _Don't be jealous,_ he scolded himself, not for the first time. Lord only knew what would become of the other bloke now. Lord only knew if he'd known him, or anyone else in there, for that matter. It was a weight upon his shoulders, especially sitting here where they were. He'd been there for Thomas; who was there for the rest of them?

More likely than not, nobody.

"Sorry," Thomas said, quickly, "I guess that's not – "

"If you want to talk about him, talk," interrupted Richard.

It wasn't that he wanted to hear (although he would manage, if he had to) so much as that he knew there wasn't anybody else Thomas could share it with.

"There's not very much to say, really, is there?"

"That's for you to decide."

"I'll probably never see him again."

"All the more reason to," Richard told him. "It may help you to remember in the future."

Like how teaching someone something made you better at it, yourself.

"I s'pose."

He sounded miserable. Richard closed his eyes and sighed — maybe he shouldn't have made the suggestion. 

They smoked in silence: with the windows rolled down there was noise, the chirping of crickets and the occasional twittering of a bird or hoot of an owl. Nothing like London. He'd missed it something awful.

"Do you even know what I was doing there?" Thomas asked suddenly. (And Richard had something of an idea.) "Because I didn't."

"Know what you were doing?"

"Yeah. And I didn't know what he wanted from me."

He opened his eyes and gave him his best _is that so._

Thomas huffed. "I mean, I figured there were… only so many things a man like him could want a man like me for."

_Don't be jealous._

"And I'd been waiting a while by that point."

_Don't be jealous._

"Yeah," Richard said. "I know." And then he swallowed his pride and his envy and said, "I'm terribly sorry about that."

Thomas laughed, just once, short. " _You're_ sorry?"

For lack of anything better to do, Richard shrugged.

"Don't you be," Thomas said firmly. "Don't you be sorry for anything."

He'd continue to be for ages, he was sure, but he knew Thomas wouldn't take kindly to hearing it. "I'll do my best," he said.

"Well, you had better, hadn't you."

Richard managed an awkward chuckle.

"I'm the one who left," Thomas said shortly. "Should be me apologising."

"You don't be sorry, neither," Richard told him. They were even, as far as he was concerned.

"Yeah, well, the point is, I don't – I don't know what I expected or why I thought it was a good idea when I was meant to be with another bloke, but he was, er… I'd been looking at him for the better part of an hour."

Thomas, eyeing up another man. The thought was thrilling at the same time as it put a twist in his stomach. 

"And he… he liked that I was. Can't say that's happened lately. Not for years." He paused. "Not since I was young – do you know what that's like? Being young, and – "

"Yeah, I reckon."

"Yeah, you would, looking the way you do," Thomas said, his gaze keen as he broke eye contact, and he kept on talking as though what he'd just said was nothing, as though he hadn't just looked at him the way he had, even as Richard felt his mouth go dry and his hands get restless _again_ — he took another drag. "Used to be you could get away with anything in London if you were young and pretty." He paused. "Probably still is that way and I just haven't been those things for a while." Richard begged to differ, but he managed to hold his tongue. "Did you spend time in London, before the war?"

Jesus, that was a lifetime ago.

"Yeah," he said after a moment. He shouldn't have had to think about it. "I've been in the Royal Household since '06."

"I wasn't even in service yet back then," mused Thomas.

And now, hardly twenty years later, he was a fucking butler. That wasn't how this was supposed to work.

" – quite different from _York._ "

"You might say that."

"Were you, erm," Thomas began, and then he chuckled. "In the early days, were you…"

He could mean any number of things by that, but Richard could hazard a guess. "Had I come out?"

"Er, yeah."

"Mhm."

"Do people… say that, here? I was in New York a few years ago and no one could bloody shut up about it, who was to be coming out next and who just had, and I'd thought the _regular_ London season was insufferable…"

The question and its explanation seemed inherently contradictory. Richard raised his eyebrows and asked, "how is it you know more about what goes on in New York than in London?"

"I don't _now,_ " Thomas said, indignantly. He was – pouting was the only word, cheeks hollow and lips pursed, and there was something childish and petulant about it that Richard could only be endeared by. "I haven't been back since the first time."

"Surely you've been to London more recently than America."

"Yeah, well," he retorted, flustered, "maybe, but I don't know about _anywhere_ now, aside from places to…"

He could hazard a guess what he meant by that, and was going to try not to think about it.

"Some people say it," he said finally. "Some don't."

Thomas nodded. 

"I don't know about much either," Richard added. Confessed, rather. He'd begun to feel as though he were being looked up to and didn't find himself worthy of it, but he was (foolishly, he knew; nothing good would come of keeping up a veneer) loathe to say anything to dissuade Thomas from whatever grand ideas he held about either his experience or his character. "I've got too much to lose to."

But far from looking disillusioned, Thomas seemed to relax; about an inch's worth of tension left his shoulders... He had to wonder if they'd fall even further. He'd lost an inch after the first puff of his cigarette, too.

Richard said, "but I knew a good deal more when I was young, if that's what you mean to ask."

Another nod. 

"It is."

And then he looked at him as though he expected him to say something.

The problem was that he had no idea what to say, what to share. Thomas might as well have just told him his life story, and there were enough bits and pieces out of the ordinary there that he expected he had far, far more stories he could tell if he so chose. He hadn't even finished the story of tonight, for that matter.

After a long moment's consideration, he decided to say, "I got swept up into it all."

"Oh?"

That was the best way of putting it. 

"Same as the rest."

The rest of the boys of their sort in service. Young and pretty indeed.

"Talk about that, then," Thomas said, and Richard looked over at him and raised his eyebrows. "Or have you always been circumspect?"

"Did I say that I was circumspect, Thomas, or did I say that you needed to be?"

Thomas at least had the decency to look embarrassed, and Richard smiled and shook his head before continuing. He didn't want to put him off. "When they received at court… this was under King Edward, of course."

"Of course," Thomas echoed, almost mockingly. Back to before.

"Lavish household," Richard said. Thomas's tone was amusing more than discomfiting — it was one he'd found entertaining when applied to other people; he could hardly be offended by it. "It'll never be the same as that again. There were all sorts would come through during the Season especially, but even outside of it… nobles aplenty. I was a footman until the war."

And he understood, as he began to speak, how it was that Thomas had said so much in so little time — now that he'd started his head was full of things he wanted to say aloud, things he'd not spoken of in years. 

"All sorts," Thomas repeated. 

"All sorts came through, but not all sorts, erm, took to me," he admitted. 

"Everyone's someone else's type," said Thomas, a touch dark. "You let them find you instead of going after the ones you want…"

"I let them find me."

And his impression had always been that that was how these things were done, but…

"That," Thomas returned, flippant, "is how you end up in some paederastic drama opposite a Baron."

<em>Jesus.</em>

Richard stared, mouth open. 

"Had a friend," said Thomas vaguely. "Er, sort of a friend — I always thought I could do better than a Baron."

There was no small amount of pride in the words, and he had to wonder if he did, in fact do better. It was clear nonetheless, though, that he'd gone after the ones he wanted. When Richard was quiet for too long, Thomas turned again, the cheeky confidence fading into nerves. "Er, I just meant, you end up like that, or – "

"Or with a man rather too invested in the idea of being a master to a servant."

Thomas was looking at him intently now, piercing.

It didn't make him uncomfortable so much as it made him feel seen… if seen too much.

"Noble in status but not in deed," Richard added. 

"Yeah."

And, considering that Thomas might have been more interested in his time outside of the Household than his time in it, even if the bulk of his liaisons at the time were not, he continued, "and beyond that, well, London's got an underworld, doesn't it."

"It used to," Thomas said.

Because that had been why this started, hadn't it. He had to wonder what had happened to Thomas between then and now, for him to begin as… a remarkably bold young man, if he understood correctly, and become the person he was today. Nothing good, probably. And couldn't he guess, having heard all of this? He rather had the sense he'd been taken down a notch too far.

"I came to know the right people who brought me into it," he continued. "'Course, it wasn't much different from being a servant. Still found myself waiting on my social superiors and acting ornamental."

"Sounds about right," Thomas said, blasé; he kept on smoking like his lips were made for it. Richard was beginning to notice a pattern, where Thomas was concerned, the swings, the highs and lows, the hot and cold.

"Made a nice change at first, though, from home if not from the job."

"There's something in it, isn't there, men thinking you're worth looking at."

"It was a foreign feeling," he admitted.

"Yeah, and it made it easier to get what you wanted," Thomas said, and again he stumbled. "Er, for me, at least. For a little while."

There was the rub, _for a little while._

"Never lasted," said Richard. "They may as well have made sport of making promises they couldn't keep."

Or breaking them on purpose. He supposed it was rather like men swearing up and down they'd marry housemaids if they found themselves with child. He'd been too naive to realise.

"Saying they loved you when they didn't," he added.

Thomas opened his mouth.

Closed it.

Must be a sore spot.

"I was very naive, Thomas," Richard said slowly, after an awkward silence, hoping the openness might help things along. "That's what comes of leaving home as a boy, I suppose."

"You can't blame _yourself_ for what all went wrong," Thomas said, nearly immediately. " – er, if anything went wrong."

Definitely a sore spot.

"Thought that part was rather obvious," he said. "Well, you take a handsome young man – " because if Thomas wasn't going to be modest, why on Earth would he, "who's still wet behind the ears, and show him London…"

What was it he'd just said? _Liked that he was looking._ He'd known that, himself.

"…he'll have plenty of men keen to do the showing."

"And you were there year round."

"Still am."

Thomas looked away again.

"'S like I said, you could get away with anything," he said, a little more quiet, now. "Do anything. I liked it. Liked being wanted."

So Richard had gathered.

"I take it you haven't been in a while," he ventured — daring. Too daring; he might have been insulted by the suggestion, himself.

But Thomas didn't seem to be. He still didn't look at him, shrugged, drawled, "not since New York."

 _A few years_.

"Until tonight," Richard murmured.

 _Until a few days ago when I arrived at the doorstep of the Abbey,_ he wanted to say, but that would hardly go over well.

"Yeah."

"You, er… you want him?"

Thomas laughed. "Yes, I bloody wanted him, would've kept on waiting for you if I hadn't."

"Right."

"I didn't know what I was getting into," Thomas repeated. "Couldn't have possibly imagined — I mean, he was working class. Did work with his hands, could tell that much."

Precisely why he could tell, and how much, Richard found he did not especially desire to know.

"Handsome?"

"I do have taste, Richard."

Embarrassed, Richard coughed. Now it was his turn to look out the window.

But Thomas seemed amused more than anything else.

"It was dancing," he said. "He took me out dancing."

Dancing.

"That all?"

He regretted the words no sooner than they were out of his mouth, naturally, but Thomas chuckled.

"I don't know what _you_ were thinking – "

"I wasn't," Richard insisted.

" – well, my guess was off," Thomas said. "Can't blame you if yours was, too, can I?"

He hadn't had a guess. He hadn't let himself have one.

"Working and middle class blokes all under one roof," he continued, "just having a – a good time of it. With music, and drinking, we were all in our shirtsleeves — may as well have been the bloody Jubilee Hall. Never seen anything like it before in my life."

Richard tried to imagine it.

"It was… I felt normal for the first time in my life."

"Normal?" Richard asked, eyebrows raised.

Thomas looked at him, squinting a little, then shook his head. "Bad choice of words."

"I could understa – "

"No," Thomas said, "you're right. It was the furthest thing from _normal,_ that was the best part, just being able to… to be a bloke dancing with another bloke and feeling like I was meant to be doing it. Didn't cross my mind at all that I wasn't normal, 'cause it wasn't _about_ that, it wasn't about, er, what I wasn't, it was about what I was, about being…"

And here he hesitated.

"About being queer," he said softly. "I don't especially like to think of myself that way, and it wasn't – it wasn't like I had to, but it crossed my mind at one point, probably while I was stepping on his feet, that – we were all alike. Do you…"

He trailed off.

"Yeah," Richard said. "I know what you mean."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, however, he knew it was a lie, and that he didn't.

"Do you?"

And he sounded almost excited, searching again for common ground… Thomas just kept on giving him chances, didn't he.

"No," he confessed, "no, I don't."

But God, he wished that he did.

"Yeah," Thomas said, "yeah, it's, er. Fuck."

Richard blinked.

" – don't tell me you've got a problem with swearing – "

"Just wasn't expecting it."

Evidently satisfied not to have offended, Thomas continued on without pause: "I wish you knew. Wish you could know."

"Me, too."

"It's – it's so unfair," he said. "It's not right. There wasn't any harm in it, it wasn't anything wrong, like you said, just… just being… I got to follow in a fucking dance, do you know how long I've wanted to do that?"

"I can guess."

"Since I bloody learned how, Richard, that's how long. I haven't – I've never – "

He took a deep breath and then exhaled all in a rush; when he looked over at Richard it was with a tentative expression. Like he was asking a question.

Richard nodded.

"I've never been _me,_ " Thomas said. "All the – everything, before, everything I've seen and done before and I always thought it was a lot, 'til a few years ago, the Season and going abroad and even – God, even the bloody war, I won't ask about that but – it's never been me, I haven't ever gotten to just be what I wanted. And I've never been… he didn't ask me to do anything more than dance, I mean, he made it clear he – he… well, I think he'd've liked it if I wanted to, but it wasn't what he wanted me for, or at least not the only thing, it wasn't meant to be, fucking cottaging, I don't know what I thought when I left with him but he just – far as I know he just wanted to give a man a good time, and – "

And this, it seemed, was what everything had been leading up to, the summit of their conversation, what purpose he'd had in the back of his mind as he drove them here. He'd tried to prepare himself for it.

He'd failed. It was jarring as ever, seeing a grown man cry; he'd never handled this sort of thing well. Foolish of him to think he suddenly could for Thomas's sake. 

But he handed him his handkerchief and tried to swallow down the discomfort.

"Thank you," Thomas breathed. "I – sorry – "

"No need to apologise, Thomas."

It was over as soon as it had started.

Richard brought his cigarette to his lips and found it wasn't lit anymore; beside him, Thomas was still breathing too quickly, too noisily.

He closed his eyes and waited for it to subside — _do something,_ he chastised himself, _say something,_ but he was bad enough when his own feelings got out of hand; the barrier to those of others was insurmountable.

But slowly Thomas quieted, and Richard's nerves were quelled.

"All right, there?" he asked eventually.

It seemed darker when he opened his eyes than it had been when he'd closed them.

Thomas nodded.

"We'll be late getting back," he said.

"Yeah," Richard replied. "Lucky we've got the car. No one to rely on but ourselves."

"If we can be relied upon."

There was that drawl again, the one he'd found so endearing even when it was used to insult him.

Richard almost laughed.

 _Should he say it?_ he asked himself again. It might be too much. The man had just been weeping. Might be seen as too forward, but he didn't have to put it like it was a come on. It could be a come on, would be, if Thomas wanted, but the likelihood that he didn't was too great —

Nevertheless, he wouldn't know if he never tried.

"Before we head back," Richard began, butterflies in his stomach once more, and then he stopped.

Thomas raised his eyebrows.

"Something to confess?"

The butterflies shifted into a swarm of bees.

"Something to share, like."

No going back — he'd gone and made a thing of it when it would have been wiser not to, to simply let it come through over the course of the conversation the way Thomas seemed wont to do. He didn't think he could even say all that he'd learned about the other man, if asked outright; there were too many things, but already he had the sense that if someone were to say anything at all to remind of something the details would flood his head. He'd be remembering this night for a long while.

"Out with it, then," Thomas said, amusement in his voice, but his smile didn't quite reach his eyes.

"Had my first kiss just over there," Richard said finally, and he pointed.

Thomas slowly followed his direction, but he said nothing. It was only a glance before he was looking at Richard again, intense. Not irritated, nor concerned nor mocking. Richard met his gaze and did his best not to squirm under scrutiny. "I was thirteen." It was autumn, they were walking home from school…

"How old are you now?"

"Thirty-seven."

"So am I."

"Really?"

"Yeah. Thirty-eight in November."

"Just turned."

"I'm always the older one," Thomas said, and then his eyes widened and he swallowed — Richard heard and saw it both, the lick of his lips, the slight movement of his Adam's apple. He looked at his lap; Richard looked at him.

He was handsome as ever. Better looking, too, in day-clothes and with his hair unslicked, but then they all were, so that was no surprise, and he certainly didn't look badly in a livery. He'd met him while he was in one, after all. Nevertheless he preferred this, the dark hair falling across his forehead, his collar rumpled, skin pale in the moonlight, unaffected. He carried himself well, even seated in close quarters he had the posture of a servant, but he didn't have the air of one. Richard hadn't let himself have a good look until now, and now that he was he found himself drinking in the view, searching for details he might have missed. He'd discovered Thomas in bits and pieces, and now here was the entire thing just before his eyes.

He couldn't remember the last time he'd been taken with a man like this.

"So," Thomas said eventually, and Richard startled. "You were thirteen."

He'd not been discreet in his staring. "Just a lad."

"What was it like, then?"

He spoke gently, coaxing. The smile _was_ in his eyes now. How things had turned… 

"The act itself was lacking," he started; Thomas's lips twitched.

"I wonder if that might have been because you were thirteen."

"The rest of it, though…"

"Nothing like the first time, is there," Thomas said. Soft. "What was his name?"

"Roger."

"You can't be serious," he said. Completely different tone; he was grinning now. Richard's fingers found that loose thread again. Something to do. The edge was back. "God, it's like out of a book. Richard and Roger."

"Most everyone called me Dick back then," he said, for no good reason.

"What, and they don't now?"

"No nicknames in service."

"Never liked that," Thomas said firmly. "Upstairs, maybe, but if you're a valet they're not even using your Christian name upstairs, so it's nobody's business what they're calling you in the servants' hall."

"Downstairs I make them call me Mr Ellis," he said blithely, and Thomas laughed.

"You make them, do you."

"Started as a footman. People don't like change."

"So they're not the type to call everyone William and Mary."

Richard couldn't help but laugh at the notion. "No point in it. Their Majesties don't address the maids and footmen — I reckon they couldn't tell them apart if their lives depended on it."

"Well, that's the point of changing the names, isn't it?" Thomas asked.

He supposed.

"Rather redundant by that point," Richard said, and then he paused, considering. "That's how I knew tonight could come off, though. Wouldn't've helped you if I'd thought it couldn't be done."

And then he'd have had to come up with something else to impress him with, which might have been tricky. He only had so many hidden talents.

"I forgot," Thomas said. 

He almost had, himself. 

"It was your own idea."

"Do you think it worked?"

"I think we've got no way of knowing until we're back at the house."

"Wish we didn't," Thomas said.

Didn't…

"What's that?"

"Have to go back."

Once more they met eyes, and Thomas had that same quaint, amusing expression on his face as when Richard had dared to reach out and touch his lips in the middle of the damn street, wide-eyed and mouth open and stunned; this time, it seemed more at his own words than anything Richard had done. At least, so he assumed — he hadn't done anything, had he?

"Wouldn't expect you to be looking forward to it," he said, and Thomas laughed once, short, clipped. The look of surprise was gone. It had been replaced with something else, a sort of look in his eyes Richard had no recollection of having seen before — 

It all happened at once: he felt his palm on his cheek and his fingers beneath his jaw, intent and gentle and pressing, and then there were his lips on his, there was his tongue at his upper lip, he was holding him and pressing their lips together, demanding and unrelenting and Jesus Christ he was being kissed, he was being kissed by Thomas Barrow, he froze — 

And then it was done, and it was all he could do was to sit there unmoving, staring, shocked, and Thomas looked on the verge of tears again, terrified, and he needed to do something because that was the last thing he wanted, what a damn mess —

Richard kissed Thomas back. 

He kissed him like he'd wanted to when he'd said goodnight on Monday and Thomas had said _the accommodation's closer to a rectory than the Ritz_ and he'd replied _in the name, isn't it, Downton Abbey,_ and made him laugh for the first time, with him not at him, and on Tuesday morning when he'd knocked on his door at a quarter past six and told him he was _just checking to see how you were getting on_ like if he'd needed anything before bloody breakfast he'd have made it happen, and on Tuesday afternoon when he'd looked him in the eye and told him _there's not much fun to be had in York_ and who had come out of that one the victor, he wondered, and yesterday in the evening before the rain had started when they'd met in the courtyard as Thomas ended his smoking break and Richard began his and he'd caught him to say _I never gave you a chance to say no to tomorrow night, did I_ and Thomas had shrugged and said _never gave me a chance to say yes, either_ and Richard had stared at him dumbly until he'd said _come find me like you said, sure I'll be around,_ and then gone back into the house, and all of the times today from when they'd sat across from one another at breakfast surrounded by all of his colleagues to leaving the house that afternoon, the post office, to when he'd stood there in the street with his heart pounding praying to God as he waited for him to come out of the station —

He put his hands in his hair and mouthed at his lower lip and found himself closer to him than he had been, their knees touching on the bench seat, hats fallen from where they'd left them; God, was it perfect, better than he'd imagined. Thomas's right hand was warm upon on his face and his left was settled on his knee, fingers nearer to his calf than his thigh, but Richard found himself wanting more than that, more of this, more of him —

The kiss ended; they parted, breathing so loudly he couldn't hear the crickets any longer.

If he'd liked Thomas's hair mussed before…

They stared at one another, and he was conscious that it was _at one another._ That as he was taking in the sight of Thomas with his lips and cheeks a little redder than they'd been before, Thomas was seeing the same of him.

"That settles it, then," Thomas said eventually, in the worst Broad Yorkshire he had ever heard in his life (and he'd heard plenty, having lived in London long as he had), and they both laughed before kissing again, shorter, this time.

"Was that meant to be me?"

"We can't all be master impressionists," he said flippantly, and then he let go of Richard's knee and moved away, set about rolling the window back up.

A necessary evil.

"Right," said Richard. He still felt out of breath; he was still reeling. Smiling again, too. "Shall we start for Downton?"

"You didn't finish telling me about Roger," Thomas said.

Richard blinked.

God, this had really been an evening.

"I reckon we haven't finished telling each other about anything," he said back, because he had plenty of questions, himself, and Thomas shrugged.

"Got a bit of time, I suppose," he said. "The drive's how long, a little over half an hour? Forty-five minutes?" 

It would be impossible, Richard mused, for anyone looking or listening in to know that they had just been kissing, had they only Thomas's sudden aplomb to go by.

Richard would figure him out, eventually, get a better of idea of which way his compass was pointing. He'd do his damndest to, so long as Thomas kept on wanting to see him after the visit was over. That wasn't his choice to make, although he had a hunch, after everything, that Thomas wouldn't be one to see this as a one night love affair.

 _Love affair._ There he went again getting ahead of himself.

"Longer if you go under the limit," Richard said.

Which they hadn't, on the way in.

"I'm not the one behind the wheel, Richard."

The ball was in his court, then.

He started the car at the same time he started to tell his story: "we were in the same class at school…"

…and they lived in the same neighbourhood, each the second son in a working family, for whom the expectations were different, who'd been allowed from birth more room to breathe, and perhaps it was that which had drawn them together or perhaps it was simply the fact that they knew from the beginning that they were _different,_ in the way that only children could. It was a story he'd only shared so many times in his life, and of those few times all but one were with lovers ( _you're not lovers,_ he reminded himself, and then he scolded himself when he couldn't help but think _yet_ ) — it was, just like the place it occurred in, special to him alone and untarnished, and Thomas listened with rapt attention. Unlike before he spoke only when Richard prompted him to, at which times he had no trouble being pithy and occasionally sarcastic. It was a different sort of banter than that they'd had between them the previous few days, because its purpose had been altered: they weren't hiding behind it. And yet, though some of the tension between them was gone; some of it was heightened, too. There was a progression, from kissing, and though Richard did his best to keep his mind from walking too far down along that path ahead of his feet he could not deny that he saw it before him. 

"You've got a way with words, you know that," Thomas said, after he'd told him more than he'd ever intended to.

"Been told so before," said Richard, giving him a smile, and Thomas nodded.

"Yeah, if you hadn't I'd think you'd been surrounded by idiots your whole life."

"You'd think right regardless."

He'd never tire of making Thomas laugh, that was for sure.

"I mean it, though," he said once he'd gathered his breath, and Richard found himself needing to take a deep breath to collect himself. "I like listening to you."

"Thanks," Richard said, and it was sincere just as much as it was a deflection. He didn't entirely know what to say to a comment like that. "I'd oblige you further, but I reckon it's your turn to talk, now."

"You say that like we're playing cards, or something."

"Well, then let's neither of us hold them close to our chest."

He glanced over at Thomas, who was looking at him with a half-smile and easy eyes, but biting his lip all the same.

"My turn," he repeated, after Richard had turned his head forward again. "What do you want me to tell you?"

"Told you about my first," said Richard. "May as well make it even."

"First kiss," Thomas corrected.

Heat rose to his cheeks.

"Yeah."

But Thomas only laughed again. "Well, er, I was thirteen, just like you were."

"What was his name?"

"Charles."

"And how'd you come to know each other?"

"Wasn't so romantic as yours was," he began. "I was on the rugby team, first time we met was our school played against his…"

It transpired that his story was equally if not more romantic than Richard's own. This seemed to be a common theme with Thomas; he somehow had a way of puffing up the little things and downplaying the big ones, for reasons that Richard could guess but wasn't sure of. It turned out not to matter, however, because if he shared the little things and the big ones alike then Richard was able to draw his own conclusions, and that he certainly did. He drew one conclusion in particular, that being, _it is a travesty that it took us this long to meet,_ but he didn't have the courage to say so aloud, especially not while he was tasked with getting them both back to Downton Abbey well and whole.

Nevertheless they talked, and they followed the same path aloud that Richard had trod in his head — they _did_ talk about first times, if in vague terms, and they talked about their more significant partnerships (the plural only in Richard's case, and if that wasn't sad he didn't know what was) and how long they'd lasted; ended up somehow circling back to the beginning and talking about childhoods and parents, and Thomas had plenty of sad things to say there, too, things that Richard couldn't relate to and frankly hoped that very few on Earth could. They spoke about at one point in their lives having wanted not to live them anymore, and they spoke about having wanted to change, about Thomas's course of _treatment_ in London —

"Yeah, I mean, there were… I had my reasons. Had a lot of reasons. It'd been… I had made some mistakes that made it, er, difficult. To keep on like I was."

"To keep on…"

"Existing, I guess. Knowing I wasn't ever going to be like the rest. Didn't have any friends, let alone anyone more than that. Thought I was meant to be lonely forever."

— and he told him about what happened with Jimmy, and Richard told him about what happened with Edward, and then Thomas told him about _his_ Edward, and Richard told him about Lieutenant Holland and they talked about the Somme and Loos and the Marne and feeling like they could be close with men for the first times in their lives because everyone was close in the trenches because they had to be; they talked about how lost they felt when it was over and how they haven't been the same since. Thomas told him about Isis — "it's got to be the stupidest thing I ever did, besides, er, the other thing I mentioned, and that's saying something, but I got bloody lucky by the end of it," "sounds to me like you've got luck in large doses, Mr Barrow," "yeah, I mean, some of it I make myself, to be honest with you…"

A drive that ought to have been maybe three quarters of an hour at most became an hour and plenty of spare change.

Parking the car felt like moving a mountain; as soon as he'd turned it off, they fell silent. The garage was still and dark but for the light of the moon behind them; the only sound was the fading thrum of the engine. As it settled, Richard became conscious of Thomas breathing beside him, and he wondered if Thomas was listening to him, too.

He didn't know for how long they sat there beside one another, saying nothing after about two hours of talking unceasingly, but the odd thing was that there was nothing awkward about it. It was as easy to be silent as it was to speak.

"You can probably take your hands off the wheel now," Thomas said suddenly, droll, and Richard laughed without sound.

"Yeah," he said. "Probably."

But he didn't.

This would be over when he did, and that was the last thing he wanted.

Thomas reached over and set his right hand upon Richard's left, slipping his fingers between his own; breathtaken, Richard did not resist as he gently pulled it away from the steering wheel and settled their hands between them on the seat.

He squeezed. 

Richard kept his eyes forward, heart suddenly pounding.

"Thomas," he said.

"Yeah?"

"I'd like to kiss you again."

There was a pause, and he worried he'd have to take it back —

"Would you," Thomas said, as casual and matter of fact as Richard had been himself. He spread his fingers between Richard's own, bent them, and then they were holding hands properly.

"Yeah."

"I'm not stopping you, am I."

He couldn't have said who started it, but it began suddenly, spark to flame: Thomas's fingertips gentle at his neck, Richard's thumb on his cheekbone. It was sweeter than before, but no less intent, no less overwhelming.

When it was over, they didn't part, only sat there, foreheads pressed together, breathing heavily.

"It's late," Thomas murmured, almost into his mouth.

Richard said, "yeah."

"We ought to go back to the house."

But Thomas gave no indication that he especially desired to do this, and just when Richard was about to say so, he was kissing him, hand on his cheek this time, and the kid-leather of the glove upon his skin felt odd but not unpleasant.

"We ought to go back to the house," Thomas repeated, after it had finished for what felt like good, and they both pulled away, took their hats up from the floor and got out of the car in automatic fashion.

The grounds of the Abbey were stifling, somehow, and he wondered if they had been so before or if they were now only because he could see them through Thomas's eyes and sense the ghosts of people he'd never met, the ones who'd left the place either living or dead but were nonetheless gone for good, be they Nurse Sybil Crawley or Miss Sarah O'Brien or whoever else. Gone, physically, but who'd left an irremovable mark on Thomas Barrow.

It had been one night; it felt like it'd been years.

They walked along still in that comfortable silence, gravel crunching beneath their feet, until Thomas said, "I'm not sure I've shown enough gratitude for what you did."

It wasn't about gratitude and it wasn't about apologies, but all of that didn't bear repeating.

Something did, though.

"We have to stick together, men like us."

"That's the point," said Thomas, insistent, and Richard thought, _yeah, Thomas, that's why I said it._ "I don't _know_ any men like I am; I've never just _talked_ to someone like me."

"Well, we're talking now," Richard told him, because that bore repeating, too. They'd done more than talk, for that matter, but they'd started with talking and there was a strong chance they'd end with it, and though neither of them had come out and said it… well, it made a difference that they were like one another in more ways than one.

It was special for him just as much as it was for Thomas, he thought, though he'd not made a point of saying it on end like he had.

Add to that, he was smiling again.

Couldn't help it.

"And it feels good," Thomas continued, "just to be two blokes, having a chat, not trying to fit in for once."

They'd spoken about that in the car, too, the airs one had to put on and the masks one had to wear to get by as they were, and it all went back to what Thomas had told him in the beginning, about having something to prove. 

But it was because they had something to prove that they had to stick together.

"Well," Richard said, without pause. "We all have to do what we must to get by," and there was that tight-lipped smile from Thomas again — he wanted the soft one back before the night was over. He wondered if he'd have it, if perhaps that was a part of him that only surfaced away from the Abbey, and he hoped to God it wasn't. "But yeah, feels good to be two ordinary blokes."

That was a better word than normal, ordinary.

"Will they ever see it our way?"

It pleased him, to hear Thomas use the plural. There was an idea. Maybe he'd get to believing it, that they were a _we,_ an _us,_ and an _our._

"I don't know," he said. It was honest. He'd been honest with Thomas all night, and the honest truth of it was that he didn't know if they'd ever live in a world that wasn't this one, this one where they'd been shaped by all that they had and twisted and untwisted by what was around them and themselves alike, and not only in the ways one might think. But, as with other things, Richard could hope, and he did. The fact of the matter was that even after what had happened in York, the world was going to keep turning as it always had.

And so long as the world kept turning, people would keep on finding ways to make the turning better.

"Fifty years ago, who'd have thought man could fly?"

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this in 48 hours and here i plop it onto the archive of our own ✌️ find me on tumblr as [@combeferre](https://combeferre.tumblr.com/)


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